Video disc players have been proposed in which data (e.g., video frame identification numbers, record band numbers, etc.) is recovered from the record being played, processed by a microprocessor and applied to a display device connected to the player. An example of such a player is described in the U.S. patent application of Rustman et al., Ser. No. 084,386 entitled "Track Error Correction System for a Video Disc Player" filed Oct. 12, 1979 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,313,134. In the Rustman et al. player, a microprocessor calculates the playing time of a video disc record from video frame identification data present in the composite video signal recovered from the record. The playing time is then applied to a two digit seven segment light emitting diode (LED) display on the player to provide a visual indication to the user of the elapsed disc playing time. By this means, a user may easily locate a particular portion of a record for viewing.
An advantage of the kind of player proposed by Rustman et al. is that the displayed data is stored in the microprocessor memory and is thus continuously available for display even when the recovered composite video signal is partially or totally interrupted. Partial interruption may occur, for example, when the player pickup transducer encounters a defect in the record. Total interruption may occur when the player is placed in a "pause" operating mode and the video output signal is squelched to avoid the appearance of noise "snow" in the displayed picture when no signal is being recovered from the record. An example of a video disc player having such a squelch feature and which additionally lifts the playback stylus from the record in the pause operating mode to avoid unnecessary record wear is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,286,290 of Pyles et al., entitled "Fast Recovery Squelch Circuit for a Video Disc Player" which issued Aug. 25, 1981.
Notwithstanding its advantage in providing a continuous display of data, for practical reasons an LED display is relatively limited in terms of the number of characters and character fonts which may be displayed. This shortcoming may be overcome by either replacing or supplementing the LED display with a character generator that converts the data to a raster scan video format for display as a caption along with the "picture" video signal on a television receiver used with the disc player. Video character generators are well known and have heretofore been used in television receivers, for example, for adding time or channel captions to the displayed picture. At least one video disc player is commercially available which includes a character generator for adding "chapter" and "frame number" captions to the player video output signal. However, in the known player squelch circuitry inhibits the video output signal when the pause key is pressed and no video image is reproduced on the associated TV receiver.